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RIESE£CK*S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY .

26l

cats, by Dutch and other merchants. It mull be a very rich dock to yield above fourmeafuresof wine. You may eafily imagine, that the cultivation of vineyards mull bevery expenfive in this country, as the dung, which is extremely dear, mull: be carriedup to the top of the mountains on the peafants’ Ihoulders.

In our return through Geyfenheim, I vifited the magnificent palace of a Count ofOftein, the richeft gentleman in Mentz, who has laid out feveral millions he inheritedfrom his coufin, a former ele&or, in life annuities in the Dutch funds. The houfe,W'hich is in the modern tafte, pleafed me much : but what delighted me moll, was, thehalf French and half Englilh garden. Behind Greyfenheim, the Count has ftruck outlome alleys through a wood, in which there are alfo fome wildernefies. The great alleyleads through a winding walk to the top of that rock at the foot of which the bed Rude-fheim wine grows. At the top of this rock the Count has built a terrace, {unroundedby a rail, commanding one of the fined profpe&s I have ever feen. You look downupon the vine hills cut into terraces, and fee the Rhine , which, rolling through thethreatening hills which block it up, here begins to be encompaded in deep night. Thisview down to the river is mod terrific. The partly covered and partly naked rocks,which encompafs the river, make you think it is forcing its way through a fubterraneouscavern. The rock, on which you dand, dretches itfelf to the oppofite diore, whereanother abrupt mountain Hands like an immenfe pillar. The meeting together of thefetwo great mountains occafions a fall in the Rhine , the dead noife of which has a won-derful effedt in the landfcape. On the Rudelheimer fide, and near the diore you lookdiredtly down upon from the terrace, there has been a pafiage cut through the hard rocks,,big enough for the larged Ihips to fail through ; this is called the Bingenloch. Therock, which occafions the fail of the Rhine , juts out wonderfully above the water in themidd of the dream, and forms an ifland partly naked and partly covered with briars,,on which the celebrated Moufe tower Hands. If you look up the Rhine , you have aView of the bed part of the fmiling Rhinegau, and the whole oppofite diore. Varied andbeautiful as this part of the profpedf is, it is dill exceeded by what you fee on lookingdraight before you from the terrace; you have here a view into a narrow gulph, throughwhich the river Nahe, which fills its bottom, communicates with the Rhine . On thefore ground, where the Nahe joins with the Rhine , you have, to the right, the wellWooded colqffal mountain, to which the Rudelheimer rock joins itfelf under water. Onthe neck of land to the left, you have the city of Bingen at the foot of another moun-tain, the tops of which are crowned by an old cadle. The gullet itfelf, which is neartwo miles long, is wade and dark ; only the red date of a mountain in it has a fingularefiefl:, when oppofed to the woods, which appear every where to the right, and tothe mountains on the left, which are partly naked and mean, and partly planted withyuieyards. In the middle of the gullet there is a done bridge over the Nahe, whichdul bears the name of Drufus’s bridge, from Drufus Germanicus its builder, and ex-tremely raifes the pifturefque view of .the whole. At the end of the gullet dands a mill,not lefs pi&urefque than the bridge. Such is the fore ground ; and the back ground isddl more beautiful. The gullet, which contains the Nahe, is like a glafs, throughwhich you look down upon the mod laughing landfcape. The clear.light, the didantblue of the hills and mountains, fome beautiful villages, foft woods, and the vine hills•wound all thefe, indicate that the country behind this black fluice is an open one, andmod richly ornamented : this is a profpeft the like to which I had never yet feen.

1 he city of Bingen, which, together with the toll on the Rhine , worth about 30,000guilders, belongs to the Chapter of Mentz, is extremely beautiful, and contains about

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